About Sean.
Sean Richard Smith is an artist and custom printmaker regularly collaborating with some of Australia’s leading remote Aboriginal controlled art centres. He is normally found either in his Melbourne print studio and stockroom or in remote Western Australia/Northern Territory engaging in art workshops.
Sean has worked as a custom printer for Basil Hall Editions (NT) and Northern Editions (NT), where he honed his craft, and later Studio Manager at Elcho Island Arts (2009-2010). He works regularly at remote Indigenous art centres including Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, Elcho Island Arts, Mowanjum Arts and Culture, Mardbalk Arts and Crafts, Warmun Art Centre, Warlayirti Artists and Waralungku Arts.
In 2011 he founded The Ownership Project, a Melbourne based not-for-profit arts organisation engaging refugee communities with printmaking. The Ownership Project originally operated out of his own studio, but has been going from strength to strength and is now housed in its own studio in Fitzroy North, Melbourne.
He currently holds a First Class Honours in Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts (UNSW), and a Graduate Diploma in Business Management, University of Melbourne.
Why do artists use printmakers?
Printmaking represents a set of technical processes used to create textures, tones, and lines onto the surface of a matrix and duplicating this matrix through inking and printing onto specialist papers. The process of printing multiple prints that are identical is called ‘editioning’. Individual prints within an edition can be purchased by collectors, galleries, and institutions and are each hand signed by the artist. These prints are limited editions and highly collectable, as the matrix is destroyed after printing ensuring no more can be produced.
Artists who specialise in non-print related art forms, such as painting or drawing, will call upon the expertise of an experienced printmaker to facilitate the creation of a matrix and edition the print for them to ensure it is of the highest standard. This involvement by the printmaker frees up the artists time, allowing them to focus purely on the creative parts of the process, and leaves the less creative technical components to the printmaker.